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‘Tis the Season to Talk #ClimateCollapse, #NuclearColonialism, and Freeing #LeonardPeltier
by Desiree Hellegers, December 11, 2024
"I don’t know about you, but personally, the whole festive holiday thing seems to be falling a bit flat this year. Don’t get me wrong, like every other year, I do plan to really go to town on a pumpkin pie or two. But this year, the annual deluge of Black Friday ads egging us on to higher levels of consumption–with corresponding carbon emissions and solid and liquid waste–seemed particularly hollow, morbid–predatory, even–falling as Black Friday did this year on November 29, the date the U.N. first recognized in 1977 as International Day of #Solidarity with the #PalestinianPeople. This year all the excess, forced pageantry, and planned obsolescence of Black Friday seems in such stark and ironic contrast to the poverty in #Gaza.
From #Plymouth to Palestine
"Winter is coming soon to Gaza where hundreds of thousands of shell-shocked people are struggling against the odds to care for themselves and their families–from infants to elders and recent amputees on crutches and in wheelchairs, as well as people with other disabilities– eking out lives in the streets, tents, and precarious ruins of shelled out apartments. In The Guardian, Kaamil Ahmed and Ana Lucía González Paz describe Gaza as a 'sonic hellscape' filled variously with the 'incessant buzzing of drones' and 'more violent intrusions: Israeli missile strikes, sirens, gunfire and the screams of frightened people.' And the situation is unlikely to get better under Herr Trump.
"The man who as president moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem stands to personally profit from, as reported in The Guardian, investment his son-in-law Jared Kushner has in the removal of Palestinians from Gaza and its development as an Israeli waterfront resort. And no doubt Trump is also well aware of the profits to be had from exploiting Gaza’s offshore marine gas fields. But, if Jewish-led protests at the Thanksgiving Parade in New York City, and more recently in the Canadian Parliament, are anything to go by, solidarity actions against the unfolding genocide to Gaza are likely to continue to build in the run up to Hanukkah and the January inauguration.
"But in the lead up to Christmas, Joe Biden seems as willing as ever to continue the seemingly limitless supply of U.S. weapons to help annihilate Gaza. I’m just speculating here, (so, please, sir, do not to put me to the dunking stool!) but Jesus himself might be the first to observe that giving birth in a manger sounds pretty idyllic right now to women in Gaza weakened by hunger, giving birth in the rubble of buildings that used to be apartments, universities and hospitals. No sterile sheets, no antiseptic, nothing to dull the pain, nothing to stop the next forced removal, the next relocation. The #PalestinianTrailOfTears."
#NuclearColonialism v. #RedPower
"The world has no shortage of #PoliticalPrisoners – or of environmental martyrs and heroes– but 80-year-old #LeonardPeltier, a #Lakota and #Anishinaabe AIM member, is arguably the most famous, the legal lynching he underwent so outrageous, and his incarceration in a 'maximum security' prison so protracted. Even former FBI agents have themselves essentially contended that Pelter was scapegoated by the FBI for the lethal shooting of two agents–Jack Coler and Ronald Williams– on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Michael Apted’s 1992 documentary Incident at Oglala, narrated by Robert Redford, is a good place to start if you’re new to this history. But if you’re looking for insights into the role that #UraniumMining played in the conflict, you’d be better off checking out #PeterMatthiessen’s book #InTheSpiritOfCrazyHorse: Leonard Peltier and the #FBI’s War on The #AmericanIndian ovement. To hear a first-hand account, check out Peltier’s memoir #PrisonWritings: My Life Is My Sun Dance.
"Despite well-documented prosecutorial misconduct powerfully depicted in Apted’s documentary, Peltier’s conviction has yet to be overturned. And in the face of decades of global, high-profile pleas for clemency for Peltier, including by James Reynolds, a “senior US attorney who was involved in [his] prosecution,” no president up until now has been willing to free Peltier. Given that he’s in increasingly poor health, time is running out, and the same president who just pardoned his own son may be Peltier’s last shot at clemency. If you haven’t yet done so, check out the Amnesty International petition– and Amy Goodman’s and Denis Moynihan’s recent column–making the case for his release. The Red Nation media collective also has an extensive playlist of podcasts focused on Peltier’s case and the long struggle to free him.
"Peltier, arguably the world’s most visible casualty of nuclear colonialism, was only three years into his sentence when Santee Dakota organizer John Trudell, his contemporary in AIM, delivered a searing 1980 speech at the Black Hills International Survival Gathering. As Zoltan Grossman has documented, 'Multinational mining companies, such as #UnionCarbide and #Exxon, proposed the development of the #BlackHills for energy resources, including #coal mines, #uranium mines, and coal slurry #pipelines.' The Black Hills gathering brought together a global convergence of more than 10,000 Indigenous activists and non-Native allies to hold the line against a repeat of the 1950s, which, per Grossman, had 'result[ed] in the extensive irradiation of the southern Black Hills community of #Edgemont.'"
Read more:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/11/tis-the-season-to-talk-climate-collapse-nuclear-colonialism-and-freeing-leonard-peltier/
#FreeLeonardPeltier #ClemencyForLeonardPeltier #ACAB #AmnestyForLeonardPeltier #SilencingDissent #NoUraniumMining